Alone and Together...
Join the Conversation
Please share your thoughts and experiences in this important social science research project.
The fact that the word exists suggests there are plenty of examples of inanimate objects that we anthropomorphize. Cartoons are regularly populated with talking tractors, dancing candles and the like. But even the unanimated, inanimate objects we encounter in everyday life can, when imaginatively breathed into, be brought to life. One such object has been the source of hours of (witless) conversational banter in the Sassen family. The shopping cart.
As our scene unfolds, you walk into a grocery store and have one or both of the following encounters with grocery carts:
The Rogue
Providing the poor cart-hop has retrieved the fleet from parking lot corrals, you typically find the vast majority of the shopping carts in one or more queues. Almost invariably, however, is that one cart that is off to the side, positionally and directionally separate from the rest of the herd. You may have even encountered it as you walked through the parking lot into the store.
What is your attitude toward the rogue?
The Resistor
Now you’re at the back of the cart queue, removing the nose of the caboose cart from the cavity of the cart in front of it.
But it won’t break free.
You check to see if the child safety belt is caught. You check to see if the seat flap is wedged. The sucker is stuck. And so you:
Decide to teach the cart a lesson – you will move on to another cart and leave the obstinate one stuck. Are you happy now? You had a chance to be put back in action, but now nope, you’re just going to be left here. Hope you’re happy.
– OR –
See here, you son of a bitch, you’re comin’ loose.
Would love to hear your take on this everyday encounter. Please share into the collective wisdom by commenting below. After sufficient commenting, I will gather the input and share it with the carts…
Invariably I’ll find myself doing battle with a Defiant Resistor in Line 1 while someone easily removes a Compliant Pleaser from Line 2.
In fact, the cart in Line 2 gives itself up so easily as to suggest it is…
a) a promiscuous adult with no moral boundaries, or
b) a French soldier on the battlefield, or
c) a tax accountant in the ring with Mike Tyson, or
d) a promiscuous French army tax accountant in the ring with Mike Tyson.
Thank you for being a role model of whimsy. Your example helped get this launched.
Lubya.
This situation has occurred multiple times as I am frequently in the grocery store. Dependant entirely on my state of mind at the time, I will battle with the stuck cart also mindful of others nearby or if I’m feeling rushed- quickly move onto a looser looking cart. When I do go for the stuck cart there is somewhat of a accomplishment once unstuck but also a sense of “Why did I just take my life’s frustrations out in the entrance of a Publix?”. Quite perplexing!
“ Why did I just take my life’s frustrations out in the entrance of a Publix?”.
This gets to one of the cores of the matter. In the end, “who” is getting the better of who?
For me, Rogues are to be embraced and taken along for your grocery shopping adventure; and then perhaps you pay it forward to some other kind soul when you have completed your rounds. But hey, I’m told I have a reputation as a trouble maker where I teach, so there’s probably something to this.
The stuck cart deserves no mercy and must be made to comply. Stubborn sumb^&(h!
There is certainly some irony in this, but hey: I’m just your friendly neighborhood historian.
KM
Thanks for stopping by Murph!
I used to be a cart pusher at a super Wal-Mart near my hometown in Indiana. I feel I have a unique connection to these carts and the “cart-hops”. 😉 So with my previous experience when I encounter a Resistor, I get to the bottom of it so the next , potentially inexperienced, shopper doesn’t have a meltdown in front of Publix. 😂 This whole site made me smile Tim as you always do when you and your lovely lady enter the room.
Anthony:
Ah, so you’re a first responder. 😊
Thanks for stopping by. This entire weekend, we’ve had Not All Who Wander Are Lost on our Sonos system at home. That whole album!
Keep making music, brother.
I’ll typically give it a go and if it’s still stuck, I’ll move onto another. If the new one is acting out (like a messed up wheel) I might just stay with it to prove my point.